


Washed Away

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Heart-to-Heart, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9315350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: After Ruined!Earth, Lee finds AWOL Kara and asks her to give them a chance.





	

After everything—after the ruined glory of Earth, after the fighting and arguing over what to do next, after the cylons left taking the final four including her now ex-husband with them—it took two weeks and three days for Kara Thrace to start running.

It took another two weeks for Lee Adama to find her.

She was huddled, elbows on knees, on a stretch of damp shoreline, her shoes off and feet in the surf. The climate was slightly warmer here than where the fleet had landed but still far too cold–not to mention the water was probably radioactive too—for any sane person to be playing in the ocean. That’s how Lee had known to look for her here.

She didn’t turn around when he and his marine escorts walked up behind her. She didn’t have to see him to know the only person who would come looking for her these days was Lee.

“What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t that my line?” his voice boomed over the surf as he came closer. “Going AWOL, Kara? What were you thinking?”

She sighed, as he dropped down next to her in the muddy sand. He was going to get his pretty politician suit dirty. But Kara couldn’t muster the energy to quip about it. It took so much energy for everything these days. “What, like we’re a real military fleet anymore? The XO’s a toaster, remember? If that doesn’t earn you time in the brig nowadays, I doubt my little stroll will qualify." She sneered and the bitterness seeped through her voice like so much sand particles through weary fingers. “Besides, I hear the CAG? They don’t even know what she is.”

Lee frowned. “I do.”

She kept the scowl, but quirked an eyebrow at him, interested despite herself.

Lee reached out and wrapped a hand around her wrist. “You’re Kara. You’ll always be Kara.”

She glanced at him, her eyes narrowing. “I’m the harbinger of doom. Did you know that? The hybrid told me that. ‘You are the harbinger of doom and you will lead them all to their end.’ And so I did.” She looked out towards the horizon, or where the horizon would be if it wasn’t so frakking gray all the time here. “Some special destiny, huh?”

She shook her head, shrugged off Lee’s hand and stood, walking forward into the roiling surf until the waves lapped at the dirty knees of her fatigues.

Lee followed her, wading into the ocean and circling in front of her to face her. Idly, Kara thought his suit was going to be destroyed by the salt water, and that would be a shame, wardrobes being a bit limited at the end of the world and all. She blinked and snapped back to focus.

“Look, Mister President,” her voice dripped with sarcasm, “don’t you have something better to do than follow me around? Like, plot a new civilization maybe?”

“I’m not the president anymore, and no, I don’t.” At Kara’s questioning glance, he muttered, “I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity these days since it got out that I brokered the truce with the cylons.”

Kara bit her lip. She had enough of her own issues on that front without taking on guilt over Lee’s. Leoben and Sam had both betrayed her in one way or another. Just like every other person in her life. She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to talk about anything. Didn’t he get that, she was here so she could be alone, so she didn’t do any more damage. Frakking Lee.

She felt the old anger build. “I am not going back! So, this little rescue mission or whatever it is,” she looked back over her shoulder at the two marines on Lee’s security detail who were shifting uncomfortably on the shore, “you can forget about it. You’re not the President and you’re not my CO, so don’t think you can just issue some order and get me to—”

She was interrupted by Lee snorting and guffawing loudly. “As if you ever followed my orders, Starbuck! Please.” He was angry now too. Well, good. Anger was good, safe. She knew anger. She could deal with anger. “This isn’t a frakking business trip. I’m not here as an ambassador of the fleet.”

He gripped her shoulders and bent his knees slightly so he could look up into her downcast eyes. “Kara, aren’t you tired?” She blinked, staring at him, trying not to hear the way his voice cracked on her name. He shook her shoulders slightly. “Aren’t you tired of running all the time?”

Kara tried so hard to hold onto the anger, but one look at Lee’s face, etched with such misery and such hope at the same time, made it impossible. She nodded once and her face crumpled and Lee pulled her to his chest with a ferocity she didn’t expect. His arms were iron bars around her back as he stroked her hair, dropping kisses to her temple and forehead. 

“Because I am. I am so frakking sick of it.” 

***

He chanced a look at her, only a little shocked at the tears streaming down her face freely now.

Kara looked sick at his words, and scared, and Lee’d seen that look so on her face so many times before that the déjà vu nearly threatened to overtake him completely. But he shook it off, determined to make her understand, determined to break through those walls completely this time. He had to. If he’d learned one lesson from Earth, it was this: There were no more second chances.

He dropped to his knees in the surf in front of her and reached into his shirt pocket to extract the small figurine that’d been burning a hole through his chest for two weeks now, since she left it in his tent when she’d fled. Lee grabbed Kara’s hand and pressed the statuette into it. He wrapped his hand around hers over the likeness of the goddess. “You can’t keep running, Kara. There’s nowhere left to go. This is it.” He looked up at her, eyes locking onto hers. “I love you, Kara Thrace. I’ve always loved you and I always will and I am done denying it. Tell me you are too.”

She shuddered, exhaling a long slow breath and lifted a shaking hand to his face, her thumb stroking the unshaven skin of his cheeks. “I love you, Lee. I do. But all I can offer you is death and destruction,” she pulled her hand away, swinging it out to the barren landscape behind them. “Look at this place. I brought us here.” She shook her head sadly, wild eyes flitting around without finding purchase. “I thought, finally, I had a purpose. I DIED for it. I was going to prove them all wrong.” Kara faltered, hanging her head. “Instead, I just proved them right. I destroy everything I touch.”

“You are not going to destroy me Kara. You’ll break my heart and you’ll drive me insane, like you always do, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m done running away too.” He got to his feet, and cupped her face in his hands, tilting it to look up at him. “I don’t care about Earth and I don’t care about destiny. This is not all that we are, you remember that? Our destiny is what we make it and I want to make mine with you.”

She was shaking her head and frowning slightly, still unsure. “Kara do you understand what I’m saying? I want to spend the rest of our lives—even if we die on this godsforsaken place sooner rather than later—I don’t care as long as we’re together.” He kissed her once softly on the furrow between her brows. “Besides, we’ve already been through the worst of it. Two sham marriages. Your death. Earth. 40,000 angry people calling for our heads. How can we frak it up any worse than that?”

Kara looked at him and he saw something change in her eyes. Instead of just despair there was something else breaking through, a recognition, perhaps Lee dared to dream, a spark of hope. Kara shook her head slowly, her eyes wide . “You’re right,” she breathed. She said it in wonder, amazement and with just the slightest hint of disgust.

“Is that a yes?” Lee asked with trepidation. “Are you done running away from me?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m done. If you’re sure, really sure, you want me?” She smiled a little sadly, “I mean, you don’t—I don’t even know who I—”

“Kara, I don’t know who you are, but I know what you are.” She looked at him and Lee smiled. “Mine.”

He kissed her then, his lips soft but strong as he pressed them to hers. Kara resisted at first, like always, and then Lee felt her give in finally. Her body sagged against his, fists curled against his chest and the sharp wing of Aurora poked into him from between her fingers. It felt wonderful.

Kara’s mouth opened under his and the kiss changed from one of comfort to passion. Lips melded and tongues slid and tangled in each other as they clutched each other. Only the hazy remembrance of the two marines waiting on shore kept Lee from pulling her down into the cold, cold water right there.

When they finally pulled apart, each gasping for breath, he saw a tiny smile emerge on Kara’s face as she watched him. “So this is it, huh? We get our not so bright and shiny future, after all?”

Lee nodded, grinning like the cat who just ate the canary. “Yeah, yeah we frakking do.” He looked at her and a rush of giddiness ran through him and he let out a loud whoop, like the one he’d given when they’d found Earth on the dradis weeks ago. Lee embraced Kara again, sweeping her up and swinging her in a circle, their turn slowed only by her feet kicking through the water. 

She was laughing, but when he put her down, Kara frowned again, forehead crinkled in thought.

Lee felt his stomach flip over in alarm. He thought he’d finally broken through to her. Made her understand that nothing else mattered. Forcing his panic down, he tried to keep calm, his voice carefully modulated when he asked her, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She grimaced again. “I just, I was thinking…” and she sounded so serious that Lee closed his eyes, just waiting for the blow to strike him…again.

“Where the frak am I supposed to find enough wood to build you that frakking porch swing?”

And she grinned, the laughter bubbling up behind her words, as he dove for her and she twisted to elude his grasp. For a while, they were kids again, careless and playing in the surf. Lee knew there’d be battles ahead, not just the big ones for survival, but the smaller ones that would test them. But he was ready now.

He reached for Kara again, figuring the marines had seen worse, and dragged her into the waves, the ocean crashing over them and washing the past away.


End file.
